2022 - New Year thoughts and reflections on an unexpected 2021

As I sit here and think about the pristine clean 2022 that stretches in front of me I can’t help but reflect on what an interesting year 2021 turned out to be. Do we ever truly do that. I mean, really delve into the past year and take stock and reflect? We are usually all so busy running around looking after partners, children, family and friends. There’s the school runs and after school clubs, going to work, catching up with friends, housework, exercise classes, laundry, gardening, food shops, visiting relatives. The list goes on and on and on and just these few have made me feel unbalanced…and I don’t even have kids!

We can have all these big ideas on New Year’s and then quite often fail to live up to them. Sure January might go well or at least the first week or so and then something will happen. An excuse will pop into our mind which we debate over and decide is feasible and then that’s it, we’ve fallen, so early. May be you are all not the same as me. I hope not. I seem to latch on to some new hairbrained scheme and fly with it for a while and then it fizzles out. If you don’t believe me just ask two of my best friends Julie and Jackie, who have seen me go through so many transformations. They stick by me and listen and encourage and then if it doesn’t happen, well we just don’t mention it I guess. I try many things, always looking for something. It’s not that I’m dissatisfied with my life and my lot, I’m truly not. I just like to try things. Some things don’t go the distance and some do. Take learning to scuba dive which I did back in the 90's with my very dear friend Caroline. It turned out I was quite good at it and ended up a Master Instructor, opened a dive centre, lived on a boat in Egypt, ran marketing campaigns for a large Egyptian diving company. There were highs and an incredible low but I survived and lived a life I never dreamt was possible. Or I’ll decide to throw myself out of an airplane to raise money for The Chestnut Appeal for Prostate Cancer and force feed colleagues with my baked goods to raise the money. Decide it will be a great idea to hike 26 miles of the Jurassic Coast to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Research and convince my wonderful friend Amy that it would be a good idea for her to do it with me! Lots of months of training in all weathers, through injuries, sunstroke, exhaustion, getting lost in a field (literally spent 30 mins walking around and around in a circle looking for the exit) but the day of the hike came, and with support from my family, we did it! Deciding to learn to ski and going on a ski holiday…never doing that again…well maybe but I’ll go tobogganing and snow walking or whatever it’s called. Randomly taking myself off solo camping inbetween lockdowns in 2020 and doing a 2 day pottery course having never even touched clay.

I digress, sorry. Back to reflecting on 2021.. I’ve never been one for journaling or keeping a diary but I decided to do just that. I got a Moon Diary and diligently wrote a small paragraph every night. The great thing about the diary is it shows the state of the moon and which planet the moon is in. There are pages to enter your New Moon and Full Moon intentions and I actually found it quite therapeutic. I kept it going until August and then missed a few days and re-started and eventually I stopped. What I did find was that I always seemed to be out of sorts when the moon was in Aries so I could almost plan beforehand to be kinder on myself and avoid things that might trigger me. Although I stopped daily writing I continue to write my intentions on New and Full moons and I lovingly put all my crystals on a windowsill during a full moon to recharge them. The point is, for once I didn’t give myself a hard time for failing to keep up the journal as I had intended on New Year’s Day. Instead I congratulated myself on writing so much and was thankful for the messages I picked up along the way and love that I have carried on my intentions twice a month.

I missed my fitness and running but pained with an IT band / lower back issue I thought I should look at fixing myself from within rather than continue with pain killers, and so, dear readers, I had the fabulous idea to learn Reiki! Ah yes, I guess I should mention the C word. Covid! Of course we were in some level of lockdown and so I had an agonising wait until my course date with Barbara Hennesy at Beacon Tarot . To fill my time I visited my allotment and planned the year ahead. 2021 rained a lot. You may remember it differently but it did. March was pretty rubbish and in fact most of the year the weather pattern was all over the place. The ground was either too wet and muddy or plants were germinating really early and then we were getting frosts in May. But May came and my Reiki attunement happened and I was utterly blown away. It was like a calling and I knew from that moment I wanted to open Reiki up to everyone! I kept up daily self healing whilst also being more mindful and I meditated often. I practiced Reiki on family and friends and then finally as the months passed I received my Second Degree Reiki and attunement, was assessed and was finally able to offer Reiki beyond my close circle. Chi-quilibrium was born and I have a wonderful group of clients who I feel privileged to share Reiki with every session.

Remember the pottery course. I kept on having flashbacks, like really feeling the clay between my hands on the wheel. That soothing feeling when you are coning up. The rhythm, the noise of the wheel, the tactile feeling, the connection with the earth. I missed it so much. Yep, uh-huh, I emptied my shed of tools and empty paint pots and 10 years worth of rubbish and bought a wheel and kiln and have a “potting shed”.

It’s my girl cave and I can spend hours in there. I’ve thrown lots of trinket dishes and crystal dishes. There’s various sizes of bowls for olives and dips in my kitchen cupboards. I’m still playing and have lots of ideas and then I make something completely different. My husband reminds me to write everything down so I know what glazes I’ve used, what weight the clay was. I keep forgetting but Oh! the excitement when you set the kiln running. I always say the pots are in the hands of the Kiln Gods and can’t wait to open it up the next day to see what survived. Oh and the glazes now that is exciting.

Kiln ready for bique firing

Trinket dish

Girl Power

Covid has made us all change our lives so much and for me, at least, holidays overseas just seemed too risky for a girl who doesn’t leave the village much. Instead I had various long weekends with girlfriends and in September I decided to rent a safari tent, complete with wood fired hot tub so that my girlfriends and I could celebrate Mabon in style. There’s a whole separate blog about it but as well as our festival of harvest and thanks, I ran some meditation, did crystal readings, letting go rituals and oracle card readings. It just seemed to flow and felt quite natural. There’s nothing quite as powerful as 5 women all coming together with good intentions, open minds and a strong bond to make for an epic week.

With holidays in mind, I still long to see my kindred spirited besty Jackie who lives in France with her husband and menagerie and I’m ever hopeful this will happen in 2022.

So my next step in the year was in developing my spiritual side more and I enrolled on a Psychic Development course through Barbara and with one other very talented participant. We have had so much fun, have not been good at some things but better at others. I will never forget Helen’s rather dismissive “Oh, I don’t know. A black cat” statement when trying to guess what card we were holding up in the telepathic section. Oh and me drawing a copy of the house she had drawn, complete with path, chimney and picket fence! I am really looking forward to the final part next weekend, In December I even did a Paranormal Activity night at the Honiton Museum, in pitch black. Now that was something I never imagined I would ever do. So when I reflect back on 2021 I do so with love. I no longer look for the failings in me. What’s the point in that, it’s just bad energy that will linger and destroy.

My allotment in all it’s glory in 2020

In taking stock I don’t think, wow you really failed at the allotment last year, you grew some potatoes and rhubarb but didn’t fill your beds. No I put 2021 as a fallow year, allowing the soil to rest whilst I restored myself and grew in a different direction.

I don’t look back and think how unfit I have become and how I’ve failed to exercise (well maybe a slight breakdown NYE when nothing would fit). No I praise myself for waking every morning with self reiki and congratulate myself on my meditation and moon baths and how I am exercising a different part of my brain.

I don’t beat myself up for all the pottery I had planned to make but instead am in awe of myself for being patient by reading pottery techniques, watching YouTube videos, and in learning that when a pot goes wrong I just start again. If I’m not feeling creative give the potting shed a rest and read a book instead. I’m not defeated. I’m elated that I took an idea of having a pottery and saw it through from start to finish and can now be creative any time I want!

So what am I taking in to 2022.?

Be kind to myself.

I’m very good at putting others first and I recognise that sometimes I have to come first. I am going to do some form of exercise every day in January. I walked up to the allotment yesterday and today I went for a run. Tomorrow my online Yoga starts up again. I can do this but you know what, If there’s a day I’m not feeling like exercise, I will just do a gentle 10 minute yoga from YouTube. It still counts.

In assessing my allotment yesterday I know I don’t want to give it up but instead I have to find a way to make it work with me and my commitments and I’ve already started to hatch a cunning plan for that! I have to plan my time better and once again I will be filled with the nourishing goodness from my home grown fruit and vegetables, planted and nurtured by my own hands.

I will continue my psychic development and have some ideas of the direction my path may lead me but of course I may find a different direction.

I will continue to love my friends and family unconditionally and support them in every way I can.

2nd Jan run

I will continue to be the best Cat Mum I can to Charlie and Dexter. Charlie had to have his hind leg amputated on Christmas Eve and I watch in awe every day as I see how this 14 year cherub is adapting. I long for the day when my cats can be in the same room again without Dexter running away or hissing at Charlie. So it seems, for a short while at least, that my Reiki room has become his safe place with his temporary cage, a low sofa bed and little else so he won’t jump up and damage himself. It’s still a healing room I just didn’t quite expect it to be used in this way. I give him Reiki daily and I will support him and adapt with him so that 2022 is a year of harmony and love.

Charlie, Me and Dexter 2021

Chi-quilibrium Reiki Room

Charlie Tripawd

So you see dear readers, even with the best of intentions and resolutions, we cannot predict what the year ahead will bring. It may be joyful or be tinged with sadness but one thing I do know is that the sun will set and the moon will rise, take every day as a new beginning and rejoice in the beauty around us. May 2022 be filled with love and happiness and know that I am always there for you.

With blessings

Kerry x